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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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the confusions, what he'd picked up in the lobbies of hotels and so forth. He was a very, very able speechwriter, particularly as he never tried to put into Smith's mouth words that he himself did not use, or ideas that were not Smith's own ideas. He had a great respect for Smith's mind, which was a first-class mind. Shientag had sense enough to respect it. He therefore made sure that Smith wanted to say these things that he put into his speeches. The night before they would talk about the next day's speech. The Governor would have ideas - we didn't call him “Governor” then, but “Mr. Smith” - of his own. Shientag would have some ideas. They would debate them. They would argue them and then Smith would come out and say, “Now put it like this, Bernie.” When Bernie was writing it, he always wrote it just that way if Smith had said, “put it this way.” He never put into a speech anything that Smith wasn't fully agreed to. Smith had the political judgment and the political time sense, which of course Shientag lacked. He had had no previous political experience. Between them they could work out some first-class speeches. Shientag took the burden of getting them into manuscript form, getting them ready for release and all that sort of thing.

He was also a very good influence in arguing with





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